Data Act (Sweden)

Data Act
Sweden
Date enacted	11 May 1973
Repealing legislation
Personal Data Act of 1998

The Data Act (Sw. Datalagen) is the world's first national data protection law and was enacted in Sweden on 11 May 1973. It went into effect on 1 July 1974 and required licenses by the Swedish Data Protection Authority for information systems handling personal data.

Information and communications technologies (ICTs) were far developed in Sweden due to multiple circumstances and the use of computers in public administration was introduced relatively early. Furthermore, the concepts of transparency, public access and openness were traditionally widely present in Swedish society. Widespread public concern was raised in 1969 due to the year's public census.

In 1969 the Royal Commission on Publicity and Secrecy was set up to investigate problems associated with the increasing use of computers to store and process personal data and provided the initial analysis, recommendations and drafts. In July 1972 it published its report Computers and Privacy (Sw. Data och integritet).

The Data Inspection Board (DIB), proposed in the report, was set up in July 1973.

In April 1973 the Riksdag uncontentiously passed the Data Act, also proposed in the report, which only slightly modified the commission's draft. It then came into force in July 1973. An associated amendment to the Freedom of the Press Act was adopted in February 1974 − around the same time as the Credit Information Act and the Debt Recovery Acts which regulated computerized credit information.

As the law's data registration and transborder data flow requirements were considered cumbersome and confusing by private and public organizations and the DIB was soon overcome by the magnitude of registrations the law was amended in 1982 which made the private sector and the government more self-sufficient in terms of registration.

After several more amendments in 1989 a Commission on Data Protection was set up to make a total revision of the act. The commission submitted its final report in 1993 recommending a new Data Protection Act based largely on the then current second proposal from the European Commission for an EC Directive. In 1995 Sweden joined the European Union which had adopted the Data Protection Directive in the same year and a new committee was entrusted with making recommendations on the implementation of the directive and a new total revision of the Data Act. In 1997 it presented a report on the implementation containing a proposal for a new Personal Data Act.

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